SPRINT CUP SERIES BRICKYARD 400 July 31, 2011 • Indianapolis, Ind. • 160 Laps RACE 20 TIME OF RACE: 2:50:30 • AVERAGE SPEED: 140.762 mph • MARGIN OF VICTORY: 0.725 second • POLE: David Ragan, 182.994 mph • LEAD CHANGES: 22 among 13 drivers Played To Perfection Fuel Gamble Earns Menard His First Cup Series Win
PAUL MENARD says he can remember attending the inaugural Brickyard 400, held in 1994, and watching as Jeff Gordon captured the fi rst NASCAR race held at the historic 2.5-mile track. During this year’s race, Menard
saw Gordon from a diff erent perspective — closing in as Menard attempted to score his fi rst Sprint Cup victory. “He’s trying for fi ve [Brickyard
wins] and nobody’s done that before,” Menard said of Gordon. “He was fast all day. You saw him up front a lot of the day. He had a solid race car.” What Gordon didn’t have was
time. In a race that came down to
fuel mileage, Menard and crew chief Slugger Labbe played the gas gamble to perfection, and the result was Menard’s fi rst Cup win in 167 career starts. “Him catching us would have
been one thing,” Menard said of Gordon, who trailed by 0.725
second at the fi nish line, “but him passing us would have been another thing.” Regan Smith fi nished third and
was followed by Jamie McMurray and Matt Kenseth. Menard, who led four times for
21 laps, was one of 15 drivers to hit pit road on lap 123, during the day’s fi nal caution period. Fifteenth at the time, the 30-year-
old began methodically moving up through the fi eld — helped occasionally as others in front of him made their fi nal pit stops. By lap 138, he was third, by 144
he was second, and when then- leader Tony Stewart rolled out of the throttle and onto pit road at lap 145, Menard was out front. For the next 15 laps, he battled
with Mark Martin and lost the lead briefl y to McMurray before surging back to the front to lead the fi nal four laps. “As soon as the jack dropped,
we took [off ] out of pit road, Slugger
said, ‘Save me fuel, long gears,’ ” Menard said of his fi nal 37-lap run. “Once I kind of got cycled out
[as others pitted], I just started trying to maintain some kind of lap time being easy on the throttle, easy off , earlier than normal, easy on. “If I would see Mark catch me
a little bit in my mirror, I would give it more. If I saw him back off , [I would] drop it back — watching in the mirror, trying to maintain some kind of lap time and gap with the cars behind me.” And all the time, he said,
Labbe was keeping him informed of Gordon’s progress. When he narrowed the gap to about two seconds, Menard said Labbe told him to “take off .” “T e car was really good,”
Menard said. “Clean air is so important. We had it right there. T e car is awesome in clean air.” Gordon was anything but
disappointed with his team’s runnerup fi nish. “When they dropped the
green, I knew we had a car that could win this race,” he said. “We got there just a little bit short. “Paul did a great job saving fuel
because when I got there, even Regan and other guys, they were still pretty much checking up [to save fuel]. It was easy to get by them. “But Paul had saved enough to
where he could go back to a full pace. By that time, my car was just too tight behind him.”
—KENNY BRUCE
“We got there just a little bit short.” —JEFF GORDON
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Left: Mark Hawkins; Right: Elmer Kappell
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